Tough Customer

every night he's had another excuse, and tonight he's going over to a buddy's house to play poker.'

And Dodge thought,

Bingo!

He offered to repair her sink, and she accepted his offer. It was almost too easy.

'Franklin said he'd be leaving around eight-thirty or nine.' She warned him not to arrive before then. 'He wouldn't like you and me being there alone.'

'I'll make sure his pickup is gone before I come to the door.'

On his lunch hour he called his captain, who agreed to the plan Dodge outlined but warned him again to be careful. 'Learn what you can, but don't get killed doing it.'

'You don't have to tell me twice.'

The captain offered to place undercover officers in the vicinity in case there was trouble. 'Not necessary,' Dodge said. 'I'll be okay.' Besides, if this turned out well, he didn't want to share the credit. He wanted it to be a one-man show.

His show. 'But one thing you can do, sir.'

'Shoot.'

'Square it with my boss here at the plant that I need to leave early today. There's stuff I gotta do.'

The captain made the call. Dodge clocked out early, leaving him time to run some necessary errands. His first stop was at the 7-Eleven store where Doris worked. He walked in just as she was beginning her shift.

Her face lit up with her smile. 'Dodge! Come to take me dancing?'

'Came to do some business.'

Her tone changed dramatically. 'Let's go out back.'

She asked a stock boy to cover the register and led Dodge through the storeroom and out the rear door. In the alley, amid the trash receptacles, they lit up cigarettes. She exhaled. 'I heard about Jimmy Gonzales. I'm sorry.'

'It sucked.'

'I liked him.'

'So did I. He was a great partner. The best.'

'But he never caught on, did he?' she asked, looking at him askance. 'He never knew that you and I had our side thing going, did he?'

'No, he never did. He wouldn't have approved. He was a straight-up cop, as honest as they come.' Several times, Dodge and Doris had swapped favors, and the services they exchanged weren't always within the law. They certainly weren't ethical.

They smoked in silence for a while, then she asked what he needed.

He told her.

'By when?'

He told her.

'Tonight! Jesus, you don't ask for much, do you?'

'Can you get it?'

'It'll cost you more than a night of dancing.' She bobbed her eyebrows suggestively.

'Sorry, but no can do.'

'You've gone queer?'

He smiled. 'Just the opposite. I've got a lady in my life.'

'For real?'

'The real thing.'

'Well, hell. What else have you got to barter?'

'What's your little brother's status?'

'Still languishing in jail awaiting trial while the greenhorn ADA, his half-assed court-appointed attorney, and the judge dick around with bigger cases.'

'He's charged with B and E, right? Who were the arresting officers?'

She told him, and he said they were buddies of his, and maybe if she could get him what he requested in a timely fashion, he could talk his buddies into a memory loss convenient to her little brother when his case eventually came to trial. 'For a coupla fifths of Scotch, your brother would probably get off with time served.'

'Which the little jerk deserves just for being stupid.'

'Before you agree, I gotta tell you, Doris, if he ever gets busted again, he's on his own. You do this for me, I do that for you, we'll be square.'

'Deal.'

By dusk, she had what he'd asked for. It was secondhand and looked the worse for wear. 'Will it work?'

'You want a guarantee, you go to Radio Shack.'

Before he left, he asked, 'How's the A-rab treating you these days?'

'Still suspects me of stealing from him.'

Dodge laughed. 'I can't imagine why.'

He called Caroline from a pay phone and told her not to wait dinner on him. She asked if he would be working, and he said yes. She asked if he would be in danger, and he told her no. She didn't ask if he would be with the woman who wore Tabu, and he wasn't sure what he would have told her if she had, but it probably would have been an extremely loose variation of the truth.

At nine o'clock, he drove past the duplex shared by Crystal and Franklin Albright. There was no sign of his redneck pickup, but Dodge thought it prudent to kill a little more time and make sure the criminal wasn't at home. At nine-fifteen, he parked at the curb and started up the walk, carrying with him a bag of plumbing implements he'd bought at the hardware store that afternoon.

The front door was open. He peered through the screen door into a living room that had been furnished and decorated by someone who had done the best she could with the little she had. His heart went out to Crystal. The kid deserved credit for trying.

He knocked. 'Anybody home?'

She appeared in an open doorway across the room. She was wearing a pair of short denim cutoffs and a red shirt tied under her braless breasts. Her hair was loosely piled on top of her head. She was barefoot. She looked like the porn-flick farm girl who incited a hillbilly gang bang.

Her bare feet making soft pats on the hardwood floor, she came quickly to the door and unlatched it. 'Thanks for this.' She was a bit breathless as she motioned him in. 'The darned thing is still stopped up. It's disgusting.'

He held up his sack of plumbing supplies. 'I'm no Roto-Rooter, but I'm still your man.'

'Come on back.'

As he followed her into the kitchen, he casually said, 'I wouldn't have known which side of the duplex you live in if the front door hadn't been open.' He motioned with his head. 'Next door. Is that where Franklin keeps his stash?'

'His stash?'

'He won't let you go in there.' Looking as sappy as he possibly could, he shrugged. 'I immediately thought drugs.'

'He's never used drugs around me.' She chewed her lower lip nervously, then pointed to the sink. 'You see the problem.'